


Kuyamu (悔やむ)

by Ziane



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Genji's Death Coping, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 16:38:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13462233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ziane/pseuds/Ziane
Summary: Tsumi wo Kuyamu (罪を悔やむ or Repent of one's sins) was the only thing Hanzo felt since that dreadful day he had killed his brother, but working with him in Overwatch and facing him every day made even harder to cope with guilt.





	Kuyamu (悔やむ)

**Author's Note:**

> No beta-read and English is not my mother tongue. I apologize in advance for any mistakes you find <3  
> Thank you so much to Dorado for your help with the Japanese!

Kuyamu. That’s how Hanzo felt, gulping down another sakazuki of sake. At least the warmth of the alcohol stroked his throat in the most painful and pleasurable way possible. Those two things had always come together for him. Nothing in his life had been easy nor granted. He had to fight to be who he was, and he had fought so fiercely and remorselessly he had killed his brother.

_My own blood._

There was no going back. Nothing he could do to mend his actions. Regret and repent his only nourishment night after night. To look at Genji, or what was left of him, was painful. An open wound that never closes, never heals, always throbs.

How did he come to this? He had loved his brother all his life and, without a shadow of a doubt, his sword had cut him open. Genji had bled in his arms, his eyes filled with tears and sheer fear at the loss of his life at that early age. He swore not to brandish any blade for the rest of his life.

And he would fulfill that promise until the end of his days.

Hanzo emptied the tokkuri directly into his mouth, his cheeks burning red by alcohol and shame. He hated the burning sensation of shame, so disgraceful and low. It was beneath him to feel that way.

And Hanzo had joined Overwatch, wanting to make amends, to find himself as a new man, but it wasn’t working. For any good he did to the world or to others he was still rotting inside. Rotting with shame, and pain, and it was all for nothing.

It would have been easier to get over his death rather than to see his face day after day. Genji had called him brother the other day. _Brother_. Like an unmerciful dagger piercing his flesh. His heart thumped deafening in his chest. Hanzo smashed the tokkuri into the wall of the building with a groan, the noise echoing in the back of the facilities.

 _Brother_.

The moon had the shape of a Cheshire cat smile, mocking him, laughing at his despair and his unjustified rage. At least Genji’s alive. If you could call that alive; as though you could say that living his life as a half-human counted. But it was still him, just as Hanzo had lost his legs his brother had lost a little more, but it was him. His brother.

 _And I killed him_.

Hanzo’s mechanic legs yielded to his thoughts and trembled as if they were human. Because he was human. And so was Genji. But he couldn’t do anything to balance out the pain he had caused him. Shimada Hanzo desperate for forgiveness, unable to ask for it.

_Because I cannot forgive myself._

Despicable, villain, assassin, murderer, all of that and worse. He was no better than the men he hunted down as a vigilante. Sometimes he wished death just called his name one last time to surrender to it and achieve the peace he so longed for. He shed a single tear that burned his way to the beard on his jaw. A killer’s tear worthed nothing but shame.

“Howdy, partner,” McCree said.

Hanzo gasped, trying to recover himself from his own dark void of thoughts as he turned around to the cowboy behind him. Jesse McCree, another vigilante on Overwatch, his brother’s friend, and too good of a company for someone like him. A single nod from his head served as a greeting. It was easy with the cowboy, he usually did the talking for him.

“Ya’ gettin’ naughty with the booze?” McCree said with a wolfish grin on his face. “Ya’ okay, Han?”

“I told you not to call me that,” Hanzo said, a questioning look in his eyes.

“Alrighty, hon,” he said, winking at him and raising his hands as a sign of peace.

The archer exhaled and sank down on the ground against the wall. McCree did the same next to him. They both glanced at the night sky, the cowboy fixing his hat and running his fingers through the brim.

“There, wet your whistle,” he said, handing him a flask.

“Pardon me?” Hanzo arched an eyebrow at him and McCree signaled to drink from the flask with his hand.

Hanzo sniffed the bore of the brass bottle and decided he was already drunk so it wouldn’t do any harm. At least he would pass out tonight for good. But the strong taste of the bourbon didn’t mix well with the aftertaste of the sake and Hanzo cursed himself, taking another mouthful of the brewage and handing him back to the cowboy.

“Pretty night, tonight,” McCree said, glancing up at the sky. “I used to look at the stars when I was young, thinking about future adventures, imagining myself doing meaningful things.”

“Have you accomplished any of those dreams?” Hanzo asked.

“No, but they fueled me to accomplish others. Here I am with y’all, surrounded by friends an’ trying to make this world a better place,” Jesse said, sighing.

Hanzo’s lip twitched as a faint snort left his nostrils. He had been a dreamer once too. He had had dreams of power and greed, running an empire founded on all the wrong things he despised now.

“I wish I was that optimistic,” Hanzo finally said.

“Ain’t ya’ act like this has nothing to do with ya’,” McCree looked at him from the corner of his eye.

“I’m a lost cause,” Hanzo breathed in the cold air. “There’s no way I can repay the damage I’ve done in my life.”

“Then make it your own. It’s part of who you are,” McCree said, but Hanzo didn’t answer.

Hanzo turned his head to the cowboy, his sweet whiskey-colored eyes piercing his soul and watching right through him. McCree was a friend to trust in and out the battlefield, always carrying that inviting warmth with him, like a cozy blanket that will swallow you whole on a cold evening.

“Look, Han, I ain’t want to meddle in things that escape my keen but…”

“Don’t call me Han,” Hanzo glared at him.

“Jesus, you’re impossible,” McCree said, exasperated. “Just talk to Genji. He misses you, and it is not too late.”

“Genji would be better off without me,” Hanzo said.

“I can’t imagine why someone would be better off without you, sweetheart,” McCree said, granting him a half-smile that would’ve brought the red up to his cheeks if the alcohol hadn’t done that already.

“You’re just being nosy,” Hanzo said, trying to mask his embarrassment at the cowboy’s praise.

“One of my many virtues, I reckon.”

Hanzo could not understand how this man wasted his free time with him so often, but his charm had punched through his walls, wondering if this is how a real friendship felt, wondering if he deserved that at all.

“It is eating me alive, gunslinger. The guilt,” Hanzo said, resting his head on the wall and closing his eyes, in case he could see the shame hidden in them.

“Forgive yourself. You deserve to be forgiven, Han… zo,” the cowboy smiled, “That’s what we are, rights and wrongs all mixed up. I’m a nice cocktail myself.”

Hanzo looked at the gravel underneath his legs and sighed, watery dark eyes fighting to push the tears back into his aching soul. He had punished weakness, banishing the feeling from his life over, and over again. But he was only human.

“Who will ever want someone like me?” Hanzo whispered, as an unspoken truth that just sees the light for the first time.

“I’m your huckleberry,” McCree swiftly said, tipping his hat and arching an eyebrow at him, trying to be sexy, and failing and succeeding at the same time.

A guffaw echoed in the patio while tears poured from Hanzo’s eyes, unable to restrain them any longer as he laughed, and laughed, bending himself in two to repress the nervous writhing of his body. He breathed in deeply and glanced at the man at his side, smiling. He had forgotten how to smile, he couldn’t even remember when was the last time he had truly smiled and yet, that stupid cowboy just stole a piece of happiness from him.

“Dang, if ya’ ain’t have the prettiest smile I’ve ever laid eyes on, darlin’,” McCree said.

“Now you’re just being cheesy,” Hanzo replied, shaking his head and trying to repress the smirk on his face. The last thing he needed was to encourage the petty tries of the cowboy to win him over. Wasn’t it?

“Another one of my many talents,” the cowboy said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Scratch that one right after making the serious dude smile so pretty he steals your heart.”

“Any more talents I should know?”

“I’m a damn good kisser, sugar,” McCree said, boldly winking at him.

Hanzo recognized a challenge when he saw it and there was something in that smug smile that awoke something in him. Something he had thought lost or dead.

“Prove it,” Hanzo dared with a smug smile of his own.

McCree blushed, and Hanzo thought it was the cutest thing he had witnessed him do in all the time they had known each other. But he didn’t hesitate, McCree cupped his face with one hand as his thumb caressed so lightly his cheekbone that it sent a shudder through his spine and bristled the little hairs on his nape.

Hanzo looked at the cowboy, he had his eyes closed. _Cute_ . His lips parted, briefly brushed by an eager tongue, that wet them and let them glistening in the moonlight. _Cuter_. His heart sped up and his stomach clenched in the most pleasurable way while they breathed the same air. Time and space seemed to slow down as he closed his eyes to let McCree’s lips caress his, brushing gently his mouth, tickling him with his messy beard, and finally pressing his lips against him in the dearest way possible.

A weight lifted from his shoulders as though a heavenly breeze swiped away his troubled mind and replaced the cold in his heart with a warm and loving sensation. But the cowboy backed off before he could relish in his mouth.

“I can do better than that,” McCree said, a little breathless and still blushing.

Hanzo fisted his awful, old-fashioned flannel shirt and brought his mouth back to him, sweet, warm, and open as the archer let his tongue out to steal a moan from Jesse’s lips as he drew a line over them and then inside, thrusting his tongue to find the cowboy’s waiting for him, and pushing back with the same passion and eagerness McCree put in the battlefield.

Hanzo whined as the kiss deepened and he felt himself short of breath but wanting more, more of this wreck who kissed like heaven and tasted like hope. More of Jesse, a broken soul soothing his own and giving the oh-so-undeserved love he craved for. Then a gasp, an intake of air and a chuckle from both, so lost in their kiss they had forgotten how to breathe, his muscles stiff from the adrenaline. Hanzo grasped McCree’s wrist and kissed the pulse point while meeting his gaze.

_This is what happiness tastes like._

“I will blame it on the alcohol, Jesse,” Hanzo said, leaning back on the wall.

“If that’s what I need to kiss ya’ again there’s more where that came from, darlin’,” he said, pointing at the discarded flask.

McCree chuckled and put an arm around Hanzo’s shoulders, the metal heavy and cold around his neck, but Hanzo didn’t care. He embraced the physical contact as both glanced up at the sky again.

“Pretty night, indeed,” the cowboy said.

“Maybe there is hope for us after all,” Hanzo said, squeezing McCree’s knee and smirking.

“Now that’s the alcohol talking, honey.”


End file.
